dadaab refugee eucation

First and foremost, the refugee camps housing 463,000 registered refugees lack school buildings and teachers. Of Dadaab’s 221,000 school-age children and youth, only 57 000 are enrolled in school, according to the UN. The number of students who actually complete school is much lower as the drop out rates are very high especially for girls.

“We trained 120 refugees to interview more than 1,400 persons between the age of six and 18, to explore the reasons why children and youth are out of school. Perhaps most surprisingly, is that so many children, around 30 per cent, say that they are more interested in religions education which is basically provided for free. The second key reason for not attending school was the lack of money for learning material and school uniforms,” NRC Education Project Manager in Dadaab, Linda Kjosaas, explained.

Other reasons for not attending school were that their parents don’t think education is important (18.5%), that the distance to the school is too far (16%), and that they don’t speak English or Kiswahili (9.5%). Many children also said they cannot go to school because they have to work or take care of the family, something that particularly applied for the female respondents and that becomes more of a factor as the children get older. Others said that they don’t feel safe walking to school. 6% said disability or sickness was preventing them from attending school.